Hey Fidelsbeard, I hear you. And no since my two 5-MeO/Bufo experiences last year, I've heard some less than savoury things about Dr Gerry's behaviour and conduct from multiple sources...including one person who knows him well, and someone I see as having little reason to lie. I'm grateful to Dr Gerry in the sense that he acted as my bridge to those 5-MeO breakthrough experiences (the second experience of which was the pivotal event of my life to date)...I wanted someone else to worry about the dose and the dosing for me those first few times, and him being an MD appealed. Although I've heard (and seen) poor things relating to his conduct since then, I can't really fault his conduct at the time, although the setup was very much revolving door in vibe, with no real time for preparation or post session integration. So in some sense, he is acting as a messenger and getting it out there, but issues with his conduct and behaviour do concern me.

Prior to my breakthrough 5-MeO experiences, I kinda disregarded Martin Ball and wasn't that interested in his perspectives. Following my own proper 5-MeO breakthrough experiences I do think a fair bit of what he has to say is valid, and he certainly has a lot of experience. However he seems rather fixed and dogmatic and inflexible in his 5-MeO influenced perspective, and this doesn't resonate with me that much, personally. I resonate more with James Oroc and his more open and less dogmatic perspective, personally.



Good stuff, I hear you and appreciate the reflection. It is interesting a number of other 5-MeOnuats would never ever have used the term "God" to describe their perspective or insight prior to their 5-MeO breakthrough experience, and this applies to myself. I appreciate no word has more baggage attached to it, or means a wider variety of things to different people. But I think one can use it, divorced of this baggage, and in some way it is a bit more succinct and to-the-point than a term like "ultimate reality" or something like that. Others may prefer to use "Source" or another term, which more or less is the dreaded "G word" re-worded. But yeah I can totally see why people would be uncomfortable employing such a term.



Hey Jees

100%, can't not agree with you here! We need to be careful not to get ahead of ourselves and I certainly don't wish to do that. In my experience, relative to the other psychedelics, 5-MeO appears quite unique in its remarkable power, consistency, directness and speed in connecting different people to what appears to be a core, universal human transcendent or mystical experience. I don't think it's going to save the world or anything, but in a world of ever increasing disconnection (humans from nature, humans from other humans, humans from other beings), it seems like 5-MeO could be a valuable tool and in some respects act as an antidote to this negative human condition.



Hey burnt, has been a while, good to see you back here. I concur 100%...I have to admit that my breakthrough experiences, particularly the second experience I can recall more of, were terrifying at points. I remember as I was going deeper into the infinite light space, I was shedding more and more aspects of my humanity...feelings, experiences, memories...not one after the other in linear order, but more all at once in one single unfolding moment...at that point I felt like I had gone totally bonkers or was really in the act of dying. Very powerful stuff for sure, but something I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to experience.

I will soon be experimenting with 5-MeO-DMT. I look forward to it.

I think it should be noted, that the "Abrahamic religious framework" is inseparable from the Hellenic/Hellenistic (that is to say, Greek) philosophical framework.

Philo, Maimonides, Augustine, Dionysius, Ibn Tufayl, Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Averroes, Meister Eckhart, Bonaventure, Aquinas (this list would literally take pages to complete) - basically, all the major theologians from all three of the Abrahamic religions - followed the Greek Pagan philosophies. No, did not "steal" them - followed them. Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy has worn many religious faces, and its followers are happy to be in dialogue with one another, regardless of religious affiliation. All of these thinkers, Jews, Christians, and Muslims, learned from each other, and together collectively learned under, the Greek Pagans.

I see people on here mentioning Vedanta. I think it is wonderful to look to Eastern cultures. I do myself. But, I think we would really miss out if we forgot Greek and Latin philosophical theology handed down from Plato and Aristotle. Vedanta and Neoplatonism are quite similar - and to be honest, you are probably more subconsciously informed by the theology of your own heritage, than you are by another culture's, regardless of how objective or similar each culture's manifested theological system truly is. Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy is, I think, the closest you will find to a system that "transcends and is completely independent of any religions, and [is] in some way objective." I say this because even something like Vedanta is pretty squarely pegged as Hindu. Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy, by contrast, has informed numerous religious traditions - many of which no longer even exist, including the original tradition it was born in (Greek paganism). Egyptian, Syrian, and Babylonian paganism were also Platonic-Aristotelian faiths at points prior to their dissolution.

Let us not forget ourselves. Albert Hofmann was not a fan of the Eastern borrowing. It's not that it's wrong... it's just that it's easier to understand your own cultural heritage, because you are, wittingly or not, already being informed by it.

Just my 2 cents.

I try not to derail, but the God-item is related to 5meo in some way.
I'm not a historian so bear with me but anyway:

Historically on par with the Vedic (before Hellenic high times).

Then came Christianity, and Islam. But now this is more interesting: the monotheism as a result of human strive for concentration of power as the concentration of humans in cities rises? The "One God" as a simple result of politics & powers? This makes sense in a way. Subsequently to evolve later in our minds as a truth beyond doubt.

***

I've met the ahum "God" once (by lack of a better word) on a deep aya session but not like a meet and greet, more like it showed/draped a compassion wave, so just one tiny flavor of it I suppose and it destroyed me already. I can't say it was a God or sorts, it just was working on me and it seemed to have an purposed intention, maybe I just felt a form of love unknown to me.

Personally, I don't subscribe to any particular religious or spiritual doctrine. At their worse, they can be downright misleading and/or damaging. At best, they can provide a model, a framework, a map in some sense. But the map is not the terrain. I wasn't brought up in a religious household, and am a scientist, so I'm not sure to what extent I am influenced (or wish to be influenced) by my own cultural theological or theological-philosophical heritage. It seems more important to me for one to seek out the best model that resonates personally, irrespective of the cultural background of such a model, we're all one people/all one after all!

I can't say I am familiar with the Hellenic/Hellenistic philosophical framework. While the mystical sides of all religions are more experiential in nature, I think one of stronger points of the Eastern religions is that take this to the extreme...subscribers to Hinduism and Buddhism take a highly pragmatic and experiential approach to exploring consciousness through approaches such as meditation, yoga, dream work and darkness meditation, along with other practices. To engage with the great mystery, you need to go inside, into consciousness (something echoed by the mystics from all the world religions) and these various practices provide means of doing that. So it seems they have mapped the internal realms of consciousness more vividly and clearly than some other religious approaches. And this is why I think Advaita Vedanta resonates with many who have had a 5-MeO-DMT breakthrough experience, in helping provide some kind of conceptual framework for the experience. In Sanskrit, Advaita Vedanta means "not two" which of course is referring to the experience of non-duality which lies at its core. This too of course is the core of the 5-MeO-DMT breakthrough realisation.

As I've said, I'm no expert on this, and only discovered Advaita Vedanta after my 5-MeO-DMT breakthrough experiences. I haven't looked into it deeply, but what little I have heard does resonate with me in the wake of that experience. But maybe I'm missing a trick not looking into Platonic-Aristotelian philosophy, which does indeed sound interesting, especially with regard how cultures separate by time and space arrive at similar conclusions about how they perceive the way things are.

All the best with your 5-MeO-DMT explorations...the amazing thing about the breakthrough experience (from my own perspective, and that of others), is that it trumps and transcends any need for any prior faith or belief.

At the end of the day, all these ancient texts aside, these two statements I agree with <3

I should perhaps rephrase: Abrahamic religious frameworks as they currently exist, that is, as living traditions, rather than as viewed through a historical-critical method, are inseparable from Hellenism. There was of course a time when Jews and Greeks had not yet met one another, though they quickly fell in love when they did : )



I personally would not agree, and I do not think an analysis of history would either. Maybe in the case of Israel (I do not know - that history is murky to say the least), but this idea would definitely not hold up universally. The idea of one overarching God is common in religious systems that are still fully polytheistic. Iamblichus and Proclus were polytheists, but they also believed in a supreme One. I don't know much about Hinduism, but I gather they have a similar vision. In the case of Hellenic/Hellenistic tradition, monotheistic ideas do not seem to have been the result of political power consolidation, but rather philosophy. In fact, in Athens, the conservative political powers were extremely hostile to the philosophical theology of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, because of their rejection of folk polytheism. They killed Socrates, and threatened to kill Aristotle (he fled).

What Plato and Aristotle did say, though, was that the increasingly highly developed material conditions for life did allow for a more monotheistic system to develop, because it allowed philosophy to flourish, which led to serious attention to what a "first cause" would entail. Material existence is very important to the development of theology for these thinkers. But they would have seen this development as being in tandem with the development of science in general. Figuring the universe out in a rational manner requires that a civilization possess a certain degree of material development.

Not really related but still notable relative to materiality in theology, Iamblichus actually reclaimed cultic ritual religious practices into philosophy by positing an unbroken chain of causality from matter to the One. This idea survives in Christian practice as Sacramental rituals (Eucharist, baptism, etc.).

We here seem to buy into this theurgic conception to some degree, with our love of material entheogens ; )